The term isrāʾ, based on the first verse of sūra 17, is typically rendered as ‘Night Journey’. There is little compelling evidence that this was the original meaning of the Qur'anic text, and medieval lexicographers and exegetes preserved a number of alternative meanings, such as that asrā was a denominal verb meaning ‘to travel through the uplands (al-sarāh)’. Another explanation is that asrā is a denominal verb of the noun sariyya (pl. sarāyā), a military expedition. By drawing on early historiographical descriptions of sarāyā and South Arabian inscriptions, which give evidence that the word sariyya is of Sabaic origin, the Qur'anic meaning of asrā was evidently something like ‘to send on a royal expedition’. Early Islamic Arabic poetic texts also offer extremely compelling evidence that the first Muslims were familiar with some of the key concepts of South Arabian royal authority as they appear in Sabaic inscriptions.

中文翻译：

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也门铭文、伊拉克编年史、汉志诗歌：古兰经 17:1 中 Isrāʾ 意义的重构

术语伊斯拉, 基于第一节第 17 章，通常呈现为“夜行”。几乎没有令人信服的证据表明这是古兰经文本的原始含义，中世纪的词典编纂者和注释家保留了许多替代含义，例如阿斯拉是一个名词动词，意思是“穿越高地”(al-sarah)'. 另一种解释是阿斯拉是名词的名词动词sariyya (pl. sarayā)，一次军事远征。通过借鉴早期的史学描述萨拉亚和南阿拉伯的铭文，证明了这个词舍利耶起源于 Sabaic，古兰经的意思是阿斯拉显然是类似于“派遣皇家远征”。早期的伊斯兰阿拉伯诗歌文本也提供了极其令人信服的证据，表明第一批穆斯林熟悉萨巴语铭文中出现的南阿拉伯王室权威的一些关键概念。